Tools

Donald

Durham writer Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott's controversial 2011 novella, Donald, has a certain stylistic coyness to it. On one level, the thousand or so third-person references that litter its 110 pages—without a single appearance, anywhere in the manuscript, of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's name—recall those stunt novels of yesteryear in which the letter "e" or a commonplace word like "the" is never used.

But once the irritating you-know-whoness of it fades, we're left with a meticulous, interior document which speculates, at length, on what one of the principal architects of the War on Terror would have encountered had he himself been subject to the coercive mechanisms he helped establish. Martin and Elliott get hold of Rumsfeld's voice—and under his skin—as he undergoes his own extraordinary rendition.

The right people are on the case in this stage adaptation. Director and playwright Tony Perucci's politically oriented works have escorted audiences through uncomfortable terrain over the past two years, and Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern is certainly no stranger to the extreme. The cast includes Jeffrey Detwiler, J Evarts, Lucius Robinson and Jay O'Berski, in a production that runs Thursdays–Saturdays at 8:15 p.m. through Feb. 11. After Thursday's pay-what-you-can preview ($5 minimum), tickets are $12–$17. —Byron Woods